Overall Rating
  Awesome: 23.56%
Worth A Look: 37.93%
Average: 19.54%
Pretty Bad: 10.92%
Total Crap: 8.05%
9 reviews, 120 user ratings
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| Perfect Storm, The |
by Erik Childress
"My Favorite Film of the Year?"
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Was I starved to see a great movie in the year 2000? Did I feel I was losing my instinct to just go to a movie and enjoy myself? Have I forgotten the last time I gave any movie the highest rating of four stars? Perhaps all three. Well, any doubts I had about myself or about the movies of the new century was quashed with my viewing of The Perfect Storm, a film which I believe to be one of the year’s best and probably my personal favorite.The story is based on the Sebastian Junger novel about the real-life ordeal of the Andrea Gail fishing boat. This boat with a crew of six was caught in the “storm of the century” where essentially three separate storms collided to make the “monster.” It’s the kind of storm that makes meteorologists giddy and their guessing games null and void. The skipper of the boat is Billy Tyne (George Clooney), a divorcee who’s hit an unlucky streak on the water. When he comes back with yet another light load, his pride is hurt amongst all the other boat captains, but also feels that he may have let down his crew once again. So he sets out on one more mission to make amends. His crew consists of Bobby Shatford (Mark Wahlberg), who is trying to make a life with the prettiest girl in town, Christine Cotter (Diane Lane, who looks will always remain beautiful). Another divorcee, Dale “Murph” Murphy (John C. Reilly) has a son in town that he would like to see grow up. Then there’s Michael “Bugsy” Moran (John Hawkes), who despite being unlucky in love doesn’t hesitate to use the worst pick-up lines imaginable attempting to snag the big and feisty Irene (Rusty Schwimmer). His polar opposite is Alfred Pierre (Allen Payne), who always has a woman and isn’t shy about shaking the ceiling to the Crows Nest, the popular local bar where everyone hangs out. The sixth and final member is the gruff and confrontational David “Sully” Sullivan (William Fichtner) who is a last minute addition to the group and harbors some mysterious resentment towards Murph and vice versa.
It would be easy to dismiss these characters as mere props when the title star of the movie is a bunch of giant waves and fierce wind. But screenwriter Bill Wittliff gives us enough time (nearly a half an hour) before these six men set off on their expedition. We get a sense of their lives and the lives they want (most of them anyway) so we understand why they would decide to brave the weather on their trip back to Gloucester, Massachusetts. And that’s really all the character we need from each of them. I’ve heard recent comparisons to Jaws and how well developed Brody, Quint and Hooper were on their hunt for the giant shark. Well, that was a work of fiction. And it was a story (and script) plotted to the point where these men could talk a little more in-between the shark attacks. A true story such as The Perfect Storm doesn’t have such a luxury since it would be ill conceived to have the men start laughing and singing “Show Me the Way To Go Home” while their boat is falling apart. Allen Payne’s character gets kind of shortsighted and the history of Sully (himself) and his feud with Murph is less developed. But everyone else, including the women left back on shore, are interesting and I cared about them. And that’s due not only to the screenplay, but also on the strength of all the performances, most notably Clooney as the grizzled old seadog, who not only looks the part, but makes us feel that he might have actually lived it.
As the title indicates, the real star of this film is the storm itself. And is it ever a star. In the hands of a lesser director, the fury of the weather could have looked nothing more than like the stage tank its filmed on. Yet Wolfgang Petersen pulls it off it spades. This is a film that begs to be seen in a theater, on the big screen, with the best sound system available because the sound is unbelievable, putting you right in the middle of every scene. The final hour of this movie will have you spellbound in one long extended action sequence made up of numerous smaller ones, all equally exciting. Petersen parallels the Andrea Gail’s troubles with the build-up and eventual rescue attempt of a small yacht holding three people. The Coast Guard and its divers have their own problems with the efforts to save the family onboard as well as themselves. And no sooner is one of their issues escalating, that another is just beginning on the Andrea Gail. To describe in any more detail the events which lead the Andrea Gail to rifle headfirst through the storm would spoil many of the twists and turns the story has in store for its audience. Just to say that it’s first-class action filmmaking on a grand scale as this was one of the first films in a long time to actually have me worried on the edge of my seat.
As evident with the comparisons to Jaws and the man vs. the sea motif, The Perfect Storm has been taking some early hits for lackluster characterization or ho-hum melodrama. Now, there are two kinds of melodrama. Good and bad. Any true-life story is bound to have moments of melodrama to fill in the blanks in-between the facts. This was true of Apollo 13, Schindler’s List, and the granddaddy of all true-life melodrama, Titanic. The first hour and 45 minutes of that film was all melodrama until the awesome third act arrived with the iceberg. So why should The Perfect Storm be any different. It’s just as skillfully directed by Wolfgang Petersen. It’s just as exciting. And it’s just as realistic. If you’re going to attack a film based on its melodrama, how then can you fault it when it has an hour less of melodrama than a film that not only got many four star ratings across the board, but also won 11 Oscars including Best Picture of 1997?Maybe it is a bad year. Maybe in another year like 1994, 1995 or 1998 this wouldn’t be a four-star film? But then maybe it would have. Coming up to the midpoint of the year, there are other films (that upon a second viewing) could warrant a four-star rating and rate higher on my year end top ten list. Films like Chicken Run, Erin Brockovich, High Fidelity and Wonder Boys are all in that class. But when a film as well made and entertaining as The Perfect Storm comes along, I revert back to that little kid seeing my first big-screen adventures. And yet the film rises above even that to monopolize all the filmgoing experiences I’ve had to recognize that its more than just a cheap thrill ride. The movie is not only about the daring voyage these men take through the waters, but also about man’s arrogance to believe that he can conquer nature. The crew of the Andrea Gail all agree to brave the storm to save their payload while the owner of the yacht refuses to ditch in an effort to save his precious boat. Nature is what happens while you’re making plans to save it. It’s also a tribute to the working class man, trying to weather the storm and keep on his feet and his family together. The Perfect Storm is incredibly absorbing and tremendously exciting and its one of my favorite, if not one of the best, of the year 2000.
link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=1898&reviewer=198
originally posted: 06/30/00 15:15:16
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USA
30-Jun-2000
UK
N/A
Australia
29-Jun-2000 (M)
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